The compact design and speedy, high-quality printing of the M28w make it a good option for any small business or home office. Laser printers have dropped in price very significantly in recent years, but they still tend to be both too expensive and too bulky for home offices. However, if you don't need to print in colour, mono lasers can be very compact indeed.
Hp LaserJet Pro M28w is the smallest laser printer ‘in its class’ – which, in this case, means a multi-function mono-only laser printer with built-in scanner and copier, and both USB and Wi-Fi connectivity. That makes it ideal for home workers or office executives who need a fast, high-quality mono printer/scanner that takes up as little space as possible.
The M28w genuinely surprised us when it arrived as it really is extremely compact. It stands just 198mm high, 360mm wide, and 264mm deep, and is certainly small enough to sit on a desk alongside a computer in a small office or a spare room at home.
It’s sturdily built too, despite the low cost, and manages to squeeze in a useful range of features for office work, including 600dpi resolution for printing, and 1200dpi scanner. There’s a 150-sheet paper tray in the base of the printer, while the output tray holds 100 sheets, and the 1000-sheet recommended monthly output should be way more than most people will need.
The printer provides both USB and Wi-Fi connectivity, with support for Apple’s AirPrint for iOS devices, and Google Cloud Print for everyone else. There’s also an HP Smart app that can be used to print and scan from iOS and Android devices as well.
The M28w performs well for such a low-cost printer. It doesn’t quite hit HP’s quoted speed of 18 pages per minute, but our text documents in Word and PDF format still sped along at a very respectable 16.5ppm. It doesn’t print in colour of course, but we tested a few documents that combined text and graphics, and the M28w still managed 15ppm, so you can use it for handouts and other documents that don’t require colour graphics.
And, of course, text quality is as good as you’d expect from a laser printer, with smooth, sharp text for your business documents. It handles mono and grey-scale graphics well too, so you can still print out photos and other graphics occasionally even if they’re not in colour.
Naturally, it can scan in colour, even if the photocopier function only works in mono.
The speed and quality of the M28w do come at a cost, though. The purchase price includes a ‘starter’ toner cartridge that HP states should last for about 500 pages. The replacement cartridges have higher capacity – 1000 pages
PrintPrint speed, black 11 - 20Color or black Black and whiteCategoryProduct type Laser printersFamily brand LaserJetFeaturesFunctions Print scan and copyPrinting Media HandlingEnvelope input capacity Up to 10 envelopesOutput capacity Up to 100 sheetsMaximum output capacity (sheets) Up to 100 sheetsMedia type and capacity, tray 1 Sheets: 150; Envelopes: 10Paper handling input, standard 150-sheet input trayInput capacity Up to 150 sheetsPaper handling output, standard 100-sheet output binStandard output capacity (envelopes) Up to 10 envelopesMaximum input capacity (sheets) Up to 150 sheetsDisplay SpecificationsDisplay ICON LCDDisplay area (metric) 20.6 x 16.2 mmEnvironmentalAcoustic pressure emissions bystander (active, printing) 52 dB(A)Non-Operating Humidity Range 10 to 90% RHOperating humidity range 10 to 80% RHStorage temperature range -20 to 60ºCOperating temperature range 15 to 32.5ºCAcoustic power emissions 6.5 B(A)Recommended operating temperature range 17.5 to 25ºCAcoustic power emissions (ready) 2.6 B(A)Acoustic pressure emissions bystander (ready) 16 dB(A)